A few basketball thoughts
December 16, 2007
***Looks like Bernard Toombs isn’t redshirting this year. My question is this (and I’ll ask this), but for the blog, it’s rhetorical. Why isn’t he playing more? 6-foot-10. One minute of action. Two rebounds. Two points. I was much more impressed with the rebounds because they were hustle rebounds, but on his bucket, he beat everyone down the floor and caught a long pass from Justin Jonus that was a little off the mark and put it in.
***If Brandon Hazzard can score 10 ppg off the bench, it makes Troy that much better. The way he shoots the ball, if he had played 30 minutes against TAMUCC, he might have scored 30. He scored his 19 in 19 minutes. Problem is, he’s playing behind O’Darien Bassett at the two. He saw some time at the three, and will likely steal some minutes from Kenny Ware there because Ware is limited offensively.
***Michael Vogler didn’t shoot well and really took some ill-advised shots but did what a point guard is supposed to do: control the offense. He also had eight assists to just one turnover, and if I remember right, that came when he tried to save a teammate’s pass from going backcourt, caught it to where he had control of it but was hanging on, then lost it. So that turnover wasn’t totally on him. He came off the bench, but played 23 minutes to Jerome Odem’s 17. Something good to see: Odem calling Vogler over (from the bench) and pointing something out in the game. This was when another Trojan was shooting free throws.
That’s one way how much better of a team Troy is this year.
***What else makes the press effective? When a Trojan is shooting free throws, Maestri sends over a player to check in after the free throw shooter gets the ball from the ref to shoot his second free throw. It doesn’t matter what point of the game is or who, because everyone’s interchangable. Thus, if the free throw shooter makes the second shot, the sub is whistled in and Troy sets up the press.
***That Sun Belt opener is going to be VERY tough Thursday at South Alabama, who took a 71-67 win over Mississippi State Saturday. Demetric Bennett scored 39 points. USA is the one team that Troy couldn’t seem to cover very well under the John Pelphrey regime, but now Ronnie Arrow is coaching the team. USA’s losses have been by three at a very good Vanderbilt team and by three to a pretty good Ole Miss team and by five to Miami of Ohio. I don’t know what kind of offense they run, but they’ve got some legit talent.
***Sun Belt play started Saturday as Arkansas Little Rock knocked off Florida International.
***Troy needs a good crowd Monday at 7 p.m. vs. Jacksonville. They need a much bigger crowd Saturday, Dec. 29 against Western Kentucky, another very good team that lost by only six to Tennessee. That game is also at 7 p.m. Troy’s third Sun Belt game is against North Texas. Not much fun to open the year against perhaps the three best teams in the league. Troy plays all three teams twice, too.
